The invention relates to a hose winding apparatus and method, particularly adapted for winding relative light weight hoses, for example as used in forest fire fighting.
Hoses are used for many applications, from relatively light duty applications such as watering the garden using hoses having about one half inch diameter bores, to heavy duty applications for industrial fire fighting applications as used by mechanised municipal fire fighters, which hoses are typically of two to three inches in diameter. Commonly, light duty hoses are fabricated from a relatively stiff plastic which does not flatten easily, and winding up long lengths of such hose for storage or transportation purposes correspondingly requires relatively large reels. The heavy duty industrial fire fighting hoses are fabricated from a woven or braided material, which can be flattened for winding and storage. However, a hose of this type is relatively heavy, and only short lengths can be handled by one person, which are unwound and connected together as needed.
The present invention is particularly adapted for medium duty hoses, which are commonly made from woven or braided fabric and thus can be flattened, and have a bore of approximately one half inch to one inch. Such hoses are commonly used for wilderness forest fire fighting, where long lengths of hoses are required to be carried manually by persons on foot. Such hoses must be relatively light, and yet sufficiently strong to withstand rough usage and relatively high pressure for delivery to remote locations. The hoses are commonly provided in lengths of between 50 and 100 feet, with threaded couplings at opposite ends for interconnecting to form long lengths of hose, which one commonly several hundred feet long, and sometimes over a thousand feet long.
Commonly, after fighting a fire, the forest is littered with thousands of feet of interconnected hoses, which require retrieval, draining, and rewinding for removal for future use. The retrieval of the thousands of feet of hoses is time consuming, and commonly the resulting coils are poorly wound due to the haste which is necessary to reduce labour costs. If the hoses are to be removed by helicopter, due to space and weight restrictions in helicopters, it is necessary that the hoses be drained and wound as tightly as possible, and do not unwind when stored in the helicopter.
Many devices for winding and storing hoses have been devised, but none of these would be ideally suited for winding and storing medium duty hoses as used in forest fire fighting as discussed above. Devices that are designed to be attached to a structure, for example the side of a house, are not sufficiently portable for the intended use. Also, in many devices, the reel is used for storage, i.e. when the hose has been wound onto the reel, that reel is now fully utilized, and cannot be used to wind any other hoses. One such device is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,676 issued to Johnson et al, which discloses a garden hose storage apparatus in which a hose is wound onto a reel, after first passing through hose guide means. When a long length of hose has been wound onto the Johnson reel, the reel is full and the hose cannot be removed therefrom without unwinding, and thus additional hoses cannot be wound thereon. Furthermore, this reel is for a relatively stiff garden hose which does not flatten appreciably as it is wound.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,306,688 issued to Hechler IV, discloses a relatively compact hose reel assembly for winding and storing hoses which can be flattened. The hose passes through hose guides prior to being wound on the reel, but when the reel contains the hose, the assembly cannot then be used to wind other hoses.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,345 issued to Golden, discloses a hose reel which permits hoses to be reeled in sections and removed from the apparatus in the rolled condition for storage, testing, etc. This is for use with hoses which can be flattened, as for example fire hoses or for more rigid types of hoses. This device appears to be a relatively heavy duty apparatus which is mounted on a stand and the wound hose is retained between hose guide plates removably attached to a rotatable sleeve.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,251,038 issued to Gename, discloses a portable hose reel winding apparatus which is used for winding hoses which can be flattened prior to winding on the reel. The hose is wound onto a reel having a pair of integral side faces which retain the wound-up hose therebetween, the wound-up coil and reel being removable from the winding apparatus. While this provides some advantages to the present invention, each length of a hose to be wound would require a separate reel for winding and storage thereon, which would be awkward for use in a forest fire situation due to the large number of sections of hose that are used in such operations, and the corresponding large number of separate reels.
From the above it can be seen that there is no easily portable apparatus known to the inventor which facilitates winding a long length of flexible hose into a tight coil, which can then be removed as a tight coil from the apparatus, permitting re-use of the apparatus.